Conservative MP Lee Anderson speaking on GB News about Sadiq Khan (Picture: GB News)
Tory MP Lee Anderson has been urged to resign or be sacked after claiming London mayor Sadiq Khan’s ‘Islamist mates’ run London.
Labour and Conservative MPs have condemned Mr Anderson’s ‘divisive and dangerous’ rant on GB News yesterday.
Speaking after a pro-Palestine protest outside parliament, the former deputy chair of the Tory party said Islamists had ‘got control’ of Mr Khan and had ‘given our capital city away to his mates’.
Labour MP and shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper wrote on X, formerly Twitter: ‘Lee Anderson’s words about Sadiq Khan are blatant Islamophobia.
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‘This is inflammatory racism & it is deliberate. The Tories must not play games with this. It is too serious. Rishi Sunak must act.’
Senior Tory MP Sir Sajid Javid, meanwhile, branded Mr Anderson’s comments as ‘ridiculous’, while Tory peer Gavin Barwell, who was Theresa May’s chief of staff in Number 10, called the remarks a ‘despicable slur’.
Leader of Conservative party at City Hall, Neil Garratt, said he had ‘no shortage of criticisms of Mayor Khan’ but added ‘he is not an Islamist, he is not in the pockets of Islamists, and I completely disagree with anyone who says otherwise’.
Mr Anderson isn’t the only Conservative to get in hot water this week. Former prime minister Liz Truss has been criticised after using the Conservative Political Action Conference (Cpac) in the US to claim her efforts to cut taxes were ‘sabotaged’ by the ‘administrative state and the deep state’.
Ms Truss later took part in an interview with former Donald Trump advisor Steve Bannon and remained silent as he hailed far-right figure Tommy Robinson a ‘hero’.
In a letter to Mr Sunak on Friday, shadow paymaster general Jonathan Ashworth said ‘egregious’ remarks made by Mr Anderson and Ms Truss ‘cannot go unchecked or unchallenged’.
Jess Phillips, Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, also called for the Prime Minister to take action against the pair.
She wrote on X: ‘If Rishi Sunak has even the tiniest of spines he will kick out Lee Anderson and Liz Truss for their dangerous vile falsehoods.’
Mr Anderson said the capital had been taken over by Mr Khan’s ‘Islamist mates’ (Picture: Anadolu via Getty Images)
Cabinet minister Grant Shapps, meanwhile, has distanced himself Mr Anderson’s remarks, but appeared to defend the MP’s right to ‘speak [his] mind’.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast today, Mr Shapps said he had not seen the comments first-hand but added: ‘It’s certainly not the way I would put things.
‘I think there are more concerns about the way that some of these (pro-Palestinian) protests have been taking place, in particular what we saw projected on to Parliament this week, but I certainly wouldn’t phrase things like that.’
The phrase ‘from the river to the sea’ was reportedly beamed on to the Houses of Parliament on Wednesday as protesters gathered in Westminster to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Asked whether Mr Anderson should lose the Tory whip, Mr Shapps said the matter was ‘one for party itself’.
Mr Anderson’s comments appeared to be in reference to those made by former home secretary Suella Braverman in the Daily Telegraph, in which she said ‘the truth is that the Islamists, the extremists and the antisemites are in charge now’.
He said he did not ‘actually believe that these Islamists have got control of our country’ but he did believe they have ‘got control of Khan and they’ve got control of London’, and that they have ‘got control of Starmer as well’.
Downing Street has been contacted for comment.
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